Talk:Pluto

Lowell vs Pickering

I can't verify this yet, as I don't have access to the full journal cites, but I'm pretty sure it was WH Pickering, not Lowell, who captured pictures of Pluto while searching for a ninth planet. Certainly the paper linked to is discussing Pickering, not Lowell. If anyone with full access could check this I would be very grateful. Serendi^podous 16:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The Hoyt's article does not clearly state that it was either Lowell or Pickering. It only mentions that the plates were exposed on March 19 and April 7 1915, before Lowell death. Ruslik_Zero 19:13, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

H

So what's the sigma in H? Can't use it to calculate anything without more info than this. — kwami (talk) 04:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Which sigma? You should use it I think: Absolute magnitude#Solar System bodies (H). SenseiAC (talk) 16:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Animated GIF

The animated GIF looks like it gets mangled a bit from scaling. Is there any way to fix that? 212.9.31.12 (talk) 12:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

other possible classification

Wouldn't Pluto also be classified as a planetoid? it's a small planet and technically it's smaller than the Earth's moon, which is abuot the size of a large planetoid. Alien Arceus 10:34, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The term "planetoid" does not have an official definition. Serendi^podous 11:10, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

When i hear the term "planetoid" i automaticly think of a smaller planet such as pluto. would it be alright if i added the classificatoin of planetoid to the article, or should i wait for more data? Alien Arceus 16:18, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Pluto is not officially considered a planetoid, so no, do not add it. Serendi^podous 16:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Historically planetoid has been used to describe asteroids. -- Kheider (talk) 16:30, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Pluto could be described as an evolved Planetesimal. We don't have a category for that that though so no point in adding it.... Sailsbystars (talk) 17:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

With some astronomers, "planetoid" is a synonym for dwarf planet, so yes, Pluto is a planetoid in that sense. However, the word is not well defined, and others use it as a synonym for asteroid, or use it for the larger asteroids, so I don't think a category of 'planetoid' is useful here. — kwami (talk) 05:48, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that we need to clarify the term "Jovian planets" in the article

The section "Other factors" says:

"when Pluto most closely intersects the plane of Neptune's orbit, it must be at its farthest beyond it. This is known as the 1:1 superresonance and is controlled by all the Jovian planets."

Many readers won't know what "Jovian planets" means here. Jovian planets redirects to Gas giant, which is about gas giants in general and doesn't seem quite right for the usage here - "planets that control Pluto's orbit."

Can we do anything to clarify this?

As always, I'm not asking for clarification here in Talk - I think that we should add clarification in the article itself.

- 186.221.129.156 (talk) 20:52, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

"most closely intersects" is a meaningless phrase. Either it intersects it, or it doesn't. It can, of course, be "most close to it". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 17:09, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I couldn't figure out how to make it clarify the sentence before it, so I've removed it. --JorisvS (talk) 20:03, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't any orbital period be relative to the barycenter? Anything else should be parenthetical. — kwami (talk) 09:14, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Image

The new image of Pluto is an "artist's impression" and is not justified in the lede. We simply don't know what Pluto looks like apart from the low-resolution Hubble photos, which should be retained. In particular, the caption under the graphic ("Computer-generated map of Pluto from Hubble images, synthesized true color[a] and among the highest resolutions possible with current technology") is simply false, because this is not possible with current technology---it's just someone's original fantasy. --130.102.158.19 (talk) 07:10, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The original image was swapped out a week ago. No one noticed. Serendi^podous 07:44, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Good catch! That's the first time I've ever seen such high-quality violations of our original research policy in a photo. Sailsbystars (talk) 15:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Orbital period?

All the other sources I found, including NASA, including THIS VERY PAGE (in the text area), say that Pluto's orbital period is 248 years. Yet the facts column on this page shows 246 years (and a matching number of days). Where was this information taken from? What is the true orbital period? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amirams (talk • contribs) 17:22, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Not sure where those values originated from, I've updated the figures in the infobox with values sourced from NASA. Reatlas (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The orbital period of an object depends on the epoch (date) used to define it. For objects beyond the orbit of the gas giant planets, the orbital period also depends on if you calculate a heliocentric or barycentric (Sun+Jupiter) solution. The infobox seems to use J2000 values and the barycenter of the Pluto-system (MB=9). J2000 heliocentric is 246.03 years, while the J2000 barycentric value is 247.97 years. If you use an epoch of 2013-Aug-26 with a pluto-center (MB=999) and heliocentric solution, you will get an orbital period of 243.67 years. --- Kheider (talk) 04:23, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we could say 246-248 years, and add what you just said in a note? With a citation of course. Serendi^podous 07:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I have modified note B to explain why we list an orbital period of 248 years. As reference 6 and note B were written, the correct answer would have been 246 years. -- Kheider (talk) 13:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

New Pluto moon names

Can we finally get rid of the silly number names?

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/02/pluto-smallest-moons-officially-named/

• P4 --> "Kerberos"
• P5 --> "Styx"

-MarsRover (talk) 16:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Kerberos pronunciation discrepancy

Hi. According to this article, the pronunciation of Kerberos says that the "er" part should be said as "are" in the word "bare", however on the page about Pluto's moons in general, it says that it is pronounced as "ir" in "bird". Which is correct? 134340Goat (talk) 05:44, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It depends. If you want to pronounce it like Ancient Greek, it's like "bare". If you want to pronounce it as it is typically pronounced in English, it's like "bird". Serendi^podous 06:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but the problem is that the two articles conflict. The moons page, and the page for Kerberos itself, suggests that only the "ir" pronunciation is correct, while this page infers that only the "are" pronunciation is correct. If both are acceptable as you say, shouldn't all the articles show both possible ways to pronounce it?

We used to say, "pronounced X, or as in Greek", to cover the several conventions for trying to make English sound like Greek (or Latin). That might be useful here. — kwami (talk) 04:05, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

tenth-most-massive

Is using the first dash in tenth-most-massive correct or should that be removed? JEMZ1995 (talk) 02:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Probably kept. Otherwise it sounds like the tenth to be discovered that was most massive. Though sometimes when an attributive phrase + word is made attributive again, the first hyphen is dropped. Maybe a better question for the MOS. — kwami (talk) 02:44, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 31 August 2013

Please change this sentence: "This definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it an as a member of the new "dwarf planet" category (and specifically as a plutoid)." to: "This definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a member of the new "dwarf planet" category (and specifically as a plutoid)." because the "an" is unnecessary/incorrect in the original sentence. Thank you, David. 87.194.26.108 (talk) 21:01, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

 Done --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 21:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Should "PLUTO" redirect to "Pluto"?

Shouldn't PLUTO redirect to Pluto (or at least Pluto (disambiguation))? I happened to have my keyboard caps lock on when typing into the search box and was surprised when I arrived at an article about a military operation instead of at the expected article about the planetary body. Lambtron (talk) 13:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done - Yes, I agree - PLUTO now redirects to Pluto (disambiguation) - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:03, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Largest Object in the kuiper belt?

Is pluto really the largest object in the kuiper belt?

what about Eris? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AspaasBekklund (talk • contribs) 07:55, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Eris is actually part of the Scattered disc Bluap (talk) 09:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Eris CAN however, enter the Kuiper Belt due to its orbit, which would temporarily seat it as queen of the Kuiper Belt. However, as it stands, we're not actually sure which body is bigger - both have an estimated diameter of around 2240 km, but thanks to possible atmospheres and error bars, there's currently no way of telling which is larger than the other. 134340Goat (talk) 21:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Eris spends most of it's time in the scattered disc and Wikipedia technically treats these as two different regions. -- Kheider (talk) 00:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Eris's orbit as a whole lies outside the Kuiper belt, even though it sometimes comes as close to the Sun as the Kuiper belt. --JorisvS (talk) 15:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Is Pluto really largest? Makemake (dwarf planet) page says that Makemake is the largest object in Kuiper Belt. Abhijeet Pathak (talk) 08:48, 29 November 2013 (UTC)